Thursday, June 22, 2017

Well, US Senate Majority Leader and Putinesque secrecy maven Mitch McConnell finally released the Republican's long-sought, long-promised super-huge $800 billion tax cut for the wealthy.Media and Republicans are calling it a 'health-care plan,' but that is misleading because it removes health insurance from many millions of elderly and disabled Americans (Congressional analysts will release a careful estimate on Monday, three days before the bill is scheduled for its no-hearing quickie Senate vote) and additionally targets low-income women by defunding Planned Parenthood and the health-care it already provides.The biggest impact will fall on Medicaid recipients, a group whom Trump repeatedly said he would not target, and which is being hit hard by deindustrialization, an opiod epidemic and falling life expectations in states like Ohio which Trump carried.And which includes many formerly-middle class Americans who lost their homes and jobs in the Great Recession triggered by reckless, self-serving banking practices which House Republicans under the leadership of best-friend-of-the-rich Paul Ryan just voted to put back in place. Ryan has said he's been dreaming of defunding Medicaid since he was a college student. Go figure.However, to the extent that anyone's health is protected by the bill, look to Republican members of Congress whose seats, incomes, privileges and future careers as lobbyists are cushioned, even posted, because many of the bill's most uncivil measures don't kick in until after the 2018 and 2020 elections.Tax cuts for the rich. Incumbency protections for GOP Senators and House members.Republican health care at work.

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Lake Michigan

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What water, wetland protection is all about

"A little fill here and there may seem to be nothing to become excited about. But one fill, though comparatively inconsequential, may lead to another, and another, and before long a great body may be eaten away until it may no longer exist. Our navigable waters are a precious natural heritage, once gone, they disappear forever," wrote the Wisconsin Supreme Court in its 1960 opinion resolving Hixon v. PSC and buttressing The Public Trust Doctrine, Article IX of the Wisconsin State Constitution.

Banned in Milwaukee

The right, suburbanites say "No light rail for Milwaukee."

James Rowen's Bio

James Rowen, a writer and consultant, has worked for newspapers, and as the senior Mayoral staffer, in Madison and Milwaukee, WI. This blog began on 2/2/ 2007. Posts run also at various news sites, including The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's "Purple Wisconsin."